Uvalde CISD and Zurn Elkay Announce Donation for Cleaner, Healthier, Safer Drinking Water
Press release from Uvalde CISD and Zurn Elkay
05-26-26
UVALDE, Texas, May 26, 2026—Zurn Elkay Water Solutions Corporation (NYSE: ZWS) and Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD) today announced the donation of 36 Elkay Pro FiltrationTM filtered bottle filling stations, 19 Elkay® ezH2O® filtered bottle filling stations, 73 Elkay filtration conversion kits and five years of Elkay filters for each of the donated units, ensuring consistent delivery of cleaner, healthier, safer drinking water to students, faculty, staff and community members.
In an event at UCISD’s Dalton Elementary School, 600 N. Fourth Street, interim UCISD Superintendent Dr. Juan Hinojosa and Zurn Elkay VP – Public Affairs and Sustainability Angela Hersil celebrated the donation with a class of second-grade students and community leaders, including Texas State Representative Don McLaughlin (R-District 80) and Mayor Hector R. Luevano.
This summer, the donated units will be installed across five UCISD schools, replacing unfiltered drinking fountains with one filtered bottle filling station per 100 students. Additionally, all faucets in UCISD’s classrooms and cafeterias will be retrofitted to Elkay filtration, using donated conversion kits and filter cartridges.
“Access to cleaner, safer drinking water is not a luxury—it is a necessity,” Dr. Hinojosa said. “And today, because of Zurn Elkay’s Fountains for Youth initiative, that necessity becomes a guaranteed reality. Zurn Elkay’s Fountains for Youth initiative recognizes something that we in Uvalde know all too well: that the communities with the greatest need are often the ones with the fewest resources to address it. That they chose to invest here—in our schools, in our children—speaks volumes about their values as a company and as a corporate neighbor.”
“Our Fountains for Youth Program remains a cornerstone of our corporate giving, in which we donate our Elkay filtered bottle filling stations to schools across the country,” said Todd A. Adams, Chairman and CEO of Zurn Elkay Water Solutions. “For kids in Uvalde, across Texas and nationwide, school buildings are more than just places committed to the healthy physical, social and emotional development of children—they’re also a vital source of drinking water. Lead is harmful to all humans, but even more so for developing children, leading to development and learning delays. We’re proud to partner with UCISD in helping them to deliver cleaner, safer drinking water to the children of Uvalde throughout these formative years.”
Elkay filtered bottle filling stations and drinking fountains are an immediate and cost-effective solution to expensive and laborious infrastructure upgrades. Elkay filters are tested and certified to NSF/ANSI 42, 53 and 401 to reduce lead, microplastics and other harmful contaminants, with many models engineered to reduce emerging contaminants like certain PFAS (forever chemicals). Elkay bottle filling stations deliver a dramatic environmental impact as well: in 2025 alone, the use of Elkay bottle filling stations has eliminated the need for more than 20 billion single-use plastic bottles.
The donation, valued at $370,000, is part of Zurn Elkay’s Fountains for Youth initiative, which addresses the issue of lead in drinking water head-on, by providing filtered bottle filling stations and filters to school districts in areas where lead levels are high and resources are low.
“This is going to be a huge change for our community and our students,” said Rep. Don McLaughlin. “As the state representative of this area and a citizen of Uvalde, thank you to Zurn Elkay for what you’ve done here, and thank you to Uvalde CISD leadership and faculty for having the foresight to go forward with this partnership.”
“This generous donation from Zurn Elkay to UCISD ensures easy access to staying hydrated, keeping the children’s health at the forefront,” said Mayor Luevano. “Water is something that we all need, and if we can improve it, all the better for our children as they grow up.”
“Our business places us at the center of critical community issues related to water cleanliness, safety, conservation and infrastructure, and we embrace the responsibility to make an even deeper impact where it’s so desperately needed,” said Hersil. “Our products provide point-of-use filtration that immediately makes drinking water cleaner and safer, and by making donations like this, we can support communities like Uvalde in fulfilling one of their most fundamental and important goals: providing safer, cleaner drinking water to their children.”
